Wedding Tips and Advice

How To Become A Wedding Officiant

So, you want to become a wedding officiant? Why do you want to do that? Let’s start with that question. Why exactly do you want to become a wedding officiant? Do you know how thankless of a job it is? If this is something that you’re doing for the money, then you might want to look at another profession because this is definitely not going to make you rich and most officiants don’t even make a sustainable living off of this. Look up officiant salaries if you’re doing this for the money and you will quickly reconsider.

So why else could you possibly be doing this? Is it your love for the people or your love for weddings? What is it about people getting married that you see so much joy in him? Do you genuinely just like to see people happy and people tying the knot? Try to determine things like this before you decide to become an officiant because it is such a thankless job. Most people don’t even remember to hire you or start looking for someone like you until weeks before their wedding when they realize they need one of you to actually become legally married.

Putting all of that aside though, have you ever wanted to actually officiate a wedding ceremony? Is there just something about weddings that have always caught your attention and made you want to do that? Well the good news is, even though you’ve read all of the nasty things above about being an officiant, it’s very easy to become a legal and authorized officiant. You have to be authorized to not only marry people but you have to sign the marriage license as well. You have to be recognized first though by an actual ordained minister that needs to be part of an established church.

There’s actually a place called Universal Ministries that you can do this through. You can actually just sign up and order an ordination certificate to make you certified. You have to get a certificate for each state that you plan on being legalized in and actually marrying people in. After you get some letters of recommendations, present all the letters and your license to your state and you will then shortly after be legalized to actually make people official. You can then officiate weddings and you’ll be off to a nice new career of officiation.

It’s not glamorous though. It comes with its drawbacks.

The Traveling – You’ll be doing a lot of this and most of the time, it’s non-compensated unless you specify you want compensation.

The Demands – Brides have a lot of demands and this is understandable. It’s a big day for them so you’ll end up being on the receiving end of a lot of barking orders.

The Pay (Lack Of) – This is something we’ve touched upon but this is something you need to know. You’re more than likely not going to become rich or get paid very much for doing this. A lot of people do this because they love it.